Geographical Areas of Specialization: Native America, Pacific, Asia
Topical Interests: Molecular anthropology, molecular evolution, population genetics, ancient DNA
Profile:
During my academic career I have specialized in molecular genetic
techniques that can be utilized to address anthropological questions.
Over the past decade I have concentrated on the new techniques and
protocols that make ancient DNA available for study, and have used
these data to test hypotheses based on archaeological, linguistic,
and ethnographic studies. Anthropologists have struggled with the
relationship between biology and culture - how do we identify biological
relationships in prehistory using cultural and skeletal remains?
Conventional anthropological analysis of skeletal material has often
failed to clarify complex issues of social organization and structure,
including residence and mating patterns, and kinship systems. Multiple
burials are also a well-known feature of prehistoric mortuary behavior,
but traditional archaeological methods often do not provide much
insight into the meanings and implications of this pattern because
the relationships of the individuals associated in multiple burials
are not known. On a larger scale, similarities in material culture
have been considered signals of biological continuity or contact
in prehistory, while abrupt changes in material culture or morphology
have been taken as signs of biological replacement. Further conflation
of material culture and morphological similarities with biological
populations often occurs in assessing prehistoric patterns of population
movement over long distances, on occasion accompanied by supporting
data from modern linguistic relationships. Thus material culture,
language, and morphology become proxies for ethnicity, which is conflated
with the biological concept of a population. Although in many modern
cases these classes of data map onto each other rather well, their
conflation in prehistory is problematic given the numerous examples
of their discontinuity in contemporary and historic groups. Ancient
DNA provides us with another source of data relevant to these issues,
and in many cases allows the first direct tests of some of these
hypotheses.
In my research I have looked at several instances of hypothesized
prehistoric population movement and replacement, such
as the Numic Expansion in the Great Basin, the initial
peopling of the New World, and the settlement of the Pacific, in
an effort to determine which archaeological signals are the most
reliable indicators of prehistoric migrations and relationships and
to refine current hypotheses regarding these specific instances of
possible population movement. In addition, my previous projects and
current research interests have included much more fine-grained analyses
of kinship and residence and burial patterns. In general,
kinship and sex are the primary structural elements upon which ancient
social organization was based. These parameters determined
inter- and intra-community relationships, status and position within
the socio-political hierarchy, and inheritance of social prerogatives.
Traditionally, kinship and sex have been assessed through
archaeological context and conventional physical anthropological
analysis. These analyses, however, are limited by factors such as
the degree of preservation of the remains, ambiguities in physical
markers and researcher bias. The study of aDNA (ancient DNA) provides
a means to mitigate some of these limitations by enabling genetic
discrimination of kinship and precise determination of sex for burials
in which hard tissue has been preserved. Ancient DNA data may determine
whether relationships were based on blood (consanguineal),
marriage (affinal), or other systems, and can contribute greatly
to our understanding of differential patterns of mortality, disease,
diet, burial, and material culture based on sex or kinship.
My current research projects are described at http://php.indiana.edu/~molanth/ .
| 2001 |
Kaestle, FA and DG Smith. Ancient Native American DNA from Western Nevada:
Implications for the Numic Expansion Hypothesis. American Journal of Physical
Anthropology. 115:1-12. |
| 2000 |
Kaestle, FA Report on DNA Analyses of the Remains of "Kennewick Man" from
Columbia Park, Washington. Chapter 2 in Report on the DNA Testing Results of
the Kennewick Human Remains from Columbia Park, Kennewick, Washington. National
Parks Service website http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/kennewick/index.htm. |
| 1999 |
Merriwether, DA, FA Kaestle, B Zemel, G Koki,
C Mogne, M Alpers and J Friedlaender. Mitochondrial
DNA Variation in the Southwest Pacific. In SS Papiha,
R Deka, R Chakraborty (eds.) Genomic Diversity: Applications
in Human Population Genetics. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers. pp. 153-182. |
| 1999 |
Kaestle, FA, JG Lorenz, and DG Smith. Molecular
Genetics and the Numic Expansion: A Molecular Investigation
of the Prehistoric Inhabitants of Stillwater Marsh.
In BE Hemphill and CS Larsen (eds.) Understanding Prehistoric Lifeways in the
Great Basin Wetlands: Bioarchaeological Reconstruction and Interpretation. Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press. pp. 167-183. |
| 1999 |
Merriwether, DA and FA Kaestle. Mitochondrial
Recombination? (Continued). Science 285:837. |
| 1999 |
Smith, DG, RS Malhi, J Eshleman, JG Lorenz,
and FA Kaestle. Distribution of mtDNA Haplogroup
X among Native North Americans. American Journal
of Physical Anthropology 110(3):271-284. |
| 1997 |
Molecular Analysis of Ancient Native American
DNA from Western Nevada. Nevada Historical Society
Quarterly 40(1):85-96. |
| 1996 |
Mitochondrial DNA Evidence for the Identity
of the Descendants of the Prehistoric Stillwater
Marsh Population. In CS Larsen and RL Kelly (eds.)
Bioarchaeology of the Stillwater Marsh: Prehistoric
Human Adaptation in the Western Great Basin. Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History
77:73-80. |
| 1994 |
Book Review: Ancient DNA: Recovery and Analysis
of Genetic Material from Paleontological, Archaeological,
Museum, Medical, and Forensic Specimens. B. Herrmann
and S. Hummel (eds.) New York: Springer Verlag. American
Journal of Physical Anthropology 95(1):107-109. |
Student Building 130, 701 E. Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47405-7100 | Phone: (812) 855-1041 | Fax: (812) 855-4358 |
anthro@indiana.edu